‘It didn't end’: Olympian McKayla Maroney said US team doctor first molested her at 13

Olympic Gold medalist McKayla Maroney accused a former U.S. team doctor of sexually assaulting her for the first time when she was 13 years old and continuing to abuse her for years until she left the world of gymnastics.

Maroney wrote about the alleged assault on Twitter, saying that Dr. Larry Nassar, a doctor for the U.S. Women’s Gymnastics Team, told the star athlete he was giving her “medically necessary treatment that he had been performing on patients for over 30 years.”

Nassar has already been charged with 22 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct, according to ESPN.

“It started when I was 13 years old, at one of my first National Team training camps,” Maroney wrote in a statement, “and it didn’t end until I left the sport.”

In her post, the 21-year-old described multiple situations in which Nassar allegedly molested her, writing “it seemed whenever and wherever this man could find the chance, I was ‘treated.’”

She said it happened in London, before winning a Silver and Gold medal.

But of all the horrid experiences, Maroney wrote, none were nearly as bad as when she was 15, and Nassar allegedly gave her a sleeping pill while she was heading to Tokyo with her teammates.

“He’d given me a sleeping pill for the flight,” she wrote, “and the next thing I know, I was all alone with him in his hotel room getting a ‘treatment.’

“I thought I was going to die that night.”

Maroney is just the latest woman to come forward with harrowing experiences of sexual assault. That growing wave of women is spurred in large part by growing reports that Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein allegedly sexually harassed multiple up-and-coming female actors.

The accusations against Weinstein were made even more explosive after reports surfaced that his alleged pattern of sexual assault was an “open secret” to some in Hollywood, according to The Guardian.

According to The New York Times, Weinstein reached settlements with at least eight women who accused the Hollywood mogul of sexual assault over the course of three decades.

Prominent female stars including Lady Gaga, Jennifer Lawrence, Reese Witherspoon and Debra Messing have since come forward with their own personal accounts of sexual assault, according to AV Club.

Now that list includes Maroney, who offered four suggestions in her Twitter post about how to combat sexual violence against women — speak out, hold accountable those in power, educate and have “zero tolerance for abusers and those who protect them.”

“People should know that this is not just happening in Hollywood,” she wrote. “This is happening everywhere. … I had a dream to go to the Olympics, and the things I had to endure to get there, were unnecessary, and disgusting.”

“Our silence has given the wrong people power for too long, and it’s time to take our power back,” she later wrote. “And remember, it’s never too late to speak up.”

This story was originally published October 18, 2017 at 7:56 AM with the headline "‘It didn't end’: Olympian McKayla Maroney said US team doctor first molested her at 13."